February 29, 2024 • 49 mins
Daniel and Jorge talk about whether the cozy story of the proton might need to be updated to describe all of its true charm.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Hey, or hey, if we found a new quark, what
would you call it?
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Pedro or vn? Well, what are the current ones called?
Speaker 1 (00:21):
Well, there's up, down, charm, strange, top, and bottom.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Oh, man, I feel like you can only go up
from there.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
You're pretty down on these names. I mean they're pretty strange.
I personally find them kind of charming.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
I guess you do like things that are off color.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
You might think this whole scheme needs a rewrite from
the top.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
All right, well let's dive in. Bottoms up. Hi, I'm
Horae madkerk Doda and the author of Oliver's Great Big Universe.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
Hi, I'm Daniel. I'm a particle physicist and a professor
at U c Irvine, and I hope to one day
be involved in a big argument about how to name
a new particle.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
Oh, you're not involved yet. I mean, don't you guys
name things before you discover them.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
Yeah, that's true. We do name hypothetical particles that might
not even be part of the universe.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Can I lay a stick to that? Like, Hey, if
anyone ever discovers a quark in the future, I'm naming
it the Whore.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
I think you can call it whatever you like, Yeah,
whether it catches on is another question.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
No, but I said it first. Doesn't that count? Do
you have dibbs? In physics?
Speaker 1 (01:47):
There is no DIBs and physics we even have disagreements
about what to name things which go.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
On for decades. What if I name the the dibbs?
It DIBs both. But anyways, welcome to our podcast Daniel
and Jorge Explain the Universe, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
Where we want to be the first to explain everything
about the universe to you, from how all the tiny
little particles work, from their interactions to their little bits
of matter, to their quantum fields and the way they
work together to make everything that's glorious and delicious and
badly named in the universe.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
That's right, because it is a strange and charming universe
out there, full of mysteries that we are still discovering.
New discoveries are still being made even today about how
the universe works and what are all the things in it.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
One way to answer the question how does the universe
work is to figure out what its tiniest bits are
and what rules they follow. In some sense, that would
be an explanation because it's sort of the most fundamental description.
In another sense, it's sort of lacking a lot of
connection to reality. Even if you understand the tiny little bits,
you don't necessarily understand why BlackBerry ice cream is so delicious.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
Yeah, and it's pretty amazing that we've discovered so much
about what matter is made out of. Given that we
have these kind of soft, squishy eyeballs, it really don't
work all that well. All the time, we have augmented
our bare senses with all sorts of amazing technological eyeballs,
things that can gather ancient photons while orbiting the Earth,
(03:21):
and devices that poke and probe little bits of matter
to reveal their structure, or even as simple as reading glasses,
which I forgot today to bring. So that's why I'm
only about eighty percent sure of what we're talking about today.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
Is that up from usual seventy five percent?
Speaker 2 (03:39):
I guess, I mean eighty percent sure? What's on this
page in front of me?
Speaker 1 (03:43):
I see? Well, you know, I think we've been working
together for more than a decade before I even learned
that you wore glasses.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
Oh well, I only just started wearing reading glasses maybe
a year or two ago. It came pretty fast.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
I see. So you're saying, after ten years of working
with Daniel, you're incurring actual physical damage. That's right.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
I al was talking about tiny microscopic particles. I mean
that would ruin anyone's eyesight.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
All right, there you have it, folks, a health warning
for this podcast. We're five years in, which means you're
all five years away from ruining your eyesight.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
M well, I did worse glasses for a long time.
Then I got laser surgery, which is amazing. But now
I'm getting older any reading glasses, which totally stinks. You
haven't hit that wall yet.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
I've been wearing glasses since I was a teenager, and
I'm definitely not getting my eyeballs lasered. Oh no, but.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
Aren't you physicists? Don't you trust the lasers.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
I'm a physicist, so I definitely don't trust the lasers.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
What have they made a lazing operation that? Did you
see subpotomic particles?
Speaker 1 (04:44):
Oh boy? Yeah? Well, I would definitely volunteer other people
for it and ask them all sorts of questions about it.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
Really, you wouldn't want to see particles with your naked eye.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
No, I prefer augmented technological eyeballs, and to keep my
eyeballs unaltered.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
I want to see here, like take a picture.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
Exactly, build me device, put the picture on a screen.
I'm happy with that.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
But anyways, it would be amazing to see at that
microscopic level because we would discover maybe what matter is
actually made out of.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
And we have made a lot of progress over the
years and figuring out what the tiny little bits are
that click together to explain our world and what the
tiny bits inside those bits are and how they work together.
But there are still lots and lots of questions, not
just questions about the crazy weird particles we may or
may not discover as colliders, but questions about what you
(05:34):
and I are actually made out of.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
That's right, It's been a long road to discover the
building blocks of stuff around us. We started with tiny
hypothetical particles made out of earth, wind and fire, right,
That's how the Greeks started, and then we moved on
to atoms.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
I don't know if the Greeks thought about like wind
particles and fire particles. They had lots of different crazy
ideas about how the universe works. But yeah, you can
do di dot from there to quiet Field theory.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
Yeah, I isn't know what zoos is. Isn't zoos basically
like a particle, the lightning particle.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
The Zeus particle. And I don't think I've ever heard
that phrase before. That sounds like a really awesome young
adult thriller.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
That sounds like what we should name the next next
particle I discover, or that I propose we discovered.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
Well, some people do call the Higgs boson the god particles,
so maybe we should just broaden that, you know, we
should have the Jehovah particle.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
And that's right, be more inclusive about all religions.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
Really, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
But it has been a pretty amazing road to discover
what things are made of. And at some point, I
guess people discovered that we're made out of atoms, right.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
Yeah, that's right. That's the first step, and it's in
some ways the most amazing, the most incredible, the biggest
sort of intellectual leap. They say that all the craziness
in the universe, the almost infinite variety of stuff out there,
can be explained with a small set of basic building blocks,
the atoms. The about one hundred elements of the periodic
table can be put together in all sorts of ways
(07:02):
to explain everything that we've ever seen. Like philosophically, it's
not obvious that we would have to live in a
universe that works that way, where the arrangements of the
smallest bits explain the complexity that we experience.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
Yeah, I mean, it could have been that we lived
in a universe where everything was made out of earth,
wind and fire, right.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
Yeah, Or everything could have been made out of its
own different kind of stuff. Everything out there in the
universe could have had its own elemental particle that explains it.
But instead it seems like as you dig deeper and
deeper into the firmament of the universe, things weirdly get simpler.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
And so we cracked open matter to discoverage made out
of atoms, and then at some point we cracked open
the atom to find out that it's made out of
smaller particles.
Speaker 1 (07:45):
Yeah, the nucleus has protons and neutrons, and then surrounding
those are electrons, and those protons and neutrons themselves, we
discovered are also not fundamental bits of the universe. They
are made of even smaller particles bound together with an
incredibly powerful force.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
Yeah, and so we have a name for those particles.
They're called quarks, and we think we know maybe what
all the quarks are.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
We think we know, maybe that's definitely a good summary
of the physics of basically anything.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
We think we know that maybe basic size, isn't it?
Or really that's just human reality and anything that's out there.
We just think we know it's there.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
Yeah, and at a comma, maybe at the end and
you're golden or.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
Or a question mark.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
But the story isn't over.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
Maybe, And so.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
You've probably been told a familiar story about how the
proton is made out of two different quarks, the upquark
and the down but that's not the end of the story, Comma.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
Maybe it never is. Yeah, there might be only two
kinds of quarks inside of the proton, but is that
really the case? And so to the on the podcast,
we'll be tackling the question are there quarks inside the proton?
Are we basically asking if the proton is charming?
Speaker 1 (09:06):
We're asking about it's chat Yeah, is it good at
having conversations or is it kind of dull?
Speaker 2 (09:10):
Does it have riz? Is a proton? Rizzy?
Speaker 1 (09:16):
Should you take a proton out with you on Friday night?
To be your wingman or wing woman, that's.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
Right, or would it be too charming? You don't want
you don't want that? Yeah, as your wingman or wing particle.
Speaker 1 (09:32):
We are in our desperate efforts to be relevant to
modern culture here.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
Yeah, or to pretend we're young and still go out
on Friday nights. I mean, come on, let's face it,
my Friday nights are and do not involve putting on
anything besides pajama.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
Let me just squint through my reading glasses to read
the latest slaying the youth for saying that.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
Like charisma.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
Oh is that what riz is short for?
Speaker 2 (09:59):
I was wondering, Oh man, you're even worse than me.
I guess you are older than.
Speaker 1 (10:03):
Me, am. I I'm rounding up to fifty for sure.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
So well, I guess it's it's charmed, the same as
charisma sort of.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
How would you shorten charm harm arm arm?
Speaker 2 (10:15):
Obviously? I mean I think we all associate cham with charm.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
And when I heard that word before cham about what
is that? Can't place it?
Speaker 2 (10:26):
Yeah? Yeah, pretty soon all the kids will say, like,
oh man, that that kid really has cham.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
Yeah he's so chamming, he's a champion, that's right, Yes,
with a cham pion. There you go. You are a
particle a man.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
Yeah, gosh, you brought it back around to particle physics. Yes,
the Champion, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
Exactly, it's already a particle name after you, and.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
I hear it's the best one. It's like it beat
out all the other particles. All right, Well, this is
an interesting question. Are there charm forks inside the proton? Well,
first of all, I feel like maybe not a lot
of people know the conventional wisdom, which is that there
are only two of the other kinds of quarks in
the proton.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
Yeah. The story you're usually told is that the proton
is made of just two kinds of quarks, the upquark
and the down quark. These are the lightest quarks that
exist out there, the ones that are stable and usually
seen as the basic building blocks of matter.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
Yeah, And so the question is is there a third
kind of quark inside the proton? And is it charming
or is it kind of an annoying quark?
Speaker 1 (11:31):
Is the whole thing kind of strange?
Speaker 2 (11:32):
All right? Well, as usually, we were wondering how many
people out there had thought about this question or wondered
what exactly is inside the proton?
Speaker 1 (11:39):
Thanks very much to everybody who participates in this segment.
We'd love to hear your voice on the podcast, so
please write to me. Get over that barrier that's been
preventing you from participating, and send me an email to
questions at Danielandjorge dot com.
Speaker 2 (11:53):
So think about it for a second. Do you think
the proton is charming? Here's what people had to say.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
Is positively charged. I think something charming, it's positive Yes.
Speaker 3 (12:06):
I believe that a proton is made up of up
quarks and down quarks, so I'm going to say no
to the charm quark.
Speaker 4 (12:19):
I like the sound of charm quarks. I'm picturing that
character from Star Trek now as he's trying to do
a deal. That's a charm quark. I'm not sure what
a charm quark is, but if there were quarks, there
are up quarks and down quarks inside the proton, right,
So I would say that if there are quarks, they're
(12:42):
inside a proton. So yes, there are charm quarks inside
the proton, and I look forward to learning exactly what
a charm quark is.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
All right, some interesting ideas here, little Star Trek reference here,
that was a star trek T andg reference.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
Right, Yeah, I'm pretty sure quark only peer in the
next generation and he is kind of charming.
Speaker 3 (13:03):
Mmmm.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
All right, well, most people seem positive that the proton
is charming, although there was one person who said.
Speaker 1 (13:10):
No, Yeah, some people have heard the story that protons
are just made of up quarks and down quarks.
Speaker 2 (13:16):
All right, well, let's dig into it, Danielle. Maybe start
with the basics. What is a quark and what is
a charming one, and what is it not charming quark?
Speaker 1 (13:23):
So, quarks are the particles that we see inside the
proton and inside the neutron, and also inside a bunch
of other particles that we've seen in collisions and in
cosmic rays, like chaons and pions and other particles that
are not stable. But when you smash these particles together,
you discover that there really are smaller bits inside of them,
(13:44):
and those are the particles we call quarks.
Speaker 2 (13:48):
How are quarks named, by the way.
Speaker 1 (13:49):
How are the individual quarks named? Or how is the
word quark invented?
Speaker 2 (13:54):
Yeah? Like, how did they come up with the word quark?
Like it sounds kind of quirky? Was that a real
before that they discovered the particle or did they invent
any word?
Speaker 1 (14:03):
Yeah, so it's a really interesting story. Quark actually is
a thing out there in the world. It's like a
yogurty thing that is eaten in Germany and other parts
of Europe. But in English, quarks were named by Murray Gellman,
and he actually took the word from a James Joyce
poem Finnigan's Wake, where it says three quarks from master Mark.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
What did James Joyce mean by it?
Speaker 1 (14:25):
Well, there's some debate, of course, because James Joyce is
a poet and so they never like use words in
the ways that people expect.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
Meaning it was a typo, maybe.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
A genius typo, who knows. But the word quark here
is like a variation of the word croak, and so
the line in the poem is about like cheering the king.
Three quarks from mister Mark is like three croaks or
three cheers.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
And so the person who discovered these particles picked that
because he thought there were three particles or why did
they pick that word out of that poem.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
He's got a long story for why he pick this,
but essentially it comes down to the fact that there
were three of them at the time, at the time
that he was coming up with a name for it,
we thought that there were three different kinds of quarks,
the up, the down, and the strange, and so he
was looking for something connected to three.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
And by three, you mean like, you know, the more
you do these collisions and you explore what matter is
made out of, you find three different flavors of these particles.
Speaker 1 (15:22):
Right, Yeah, there's three different kinds of these particles that
were initially identified. And it comes out of this era
in particle physics called the particle Zoo, when we turned
on colliders, smashed protons into stuff and saw all sorts
of weird particles come out. When we saw pions, we
saw chaons, we saw mega particles, we saw row particles. Basically,
(15:44):
every time you turned on the collider and added a
bit more energy, you saw new stuff come out. And
so it was a very confusing time in particle physics,
like what are all these particles? Are they all made
from the same thing? Are they all their own different
kind of thing? And quarks was an effort to unify that,
to explain it. Murray Gelmon and other folks realized that
with just three basic particles, the upcork, the down cork,
(16:06):
and the strange quark. You could explain all the particles
zoo is just being different combinations of these three basic
building blocks. The same way you can explain like everything
we experience in terms of one hundred elements. They were
able to explain all of the elements of the particle
Zoo in terms of these just three basic building blocks.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
Like maybe you could say, like a iron is not
like a totally different particle than oxygen or carbon. It's
just like they're just made of different arrangements of the
same particles.
Speaker 1 (16:35):
Yeah, exactly. You can make any element with a certain
number of protons and neutrons and electrons. Right, there's really
only three building blocks there that explain all of that complexity.
In the same way you can make pions out of
an upcork and an anti upcork, you can make chaons
if you mix in some strange quarks. You can make
protons out of three quarks. You can make neutrons out
of three quarks. And so they were able to explain
(16:57):
all of this complexity using three basic building blocks, and
they were even able to predict the existence of particles
we hadn't seen yet. They said, if you mix all
these particles together, there's one way to mix them that
nobody's seen yet. And they predicted that that particle existed,
and then they saw it, and so that's what really
convinced everybody that it was real.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
What was it called?
Speaker 1 (17:16):
So it was the omega minus particle, which was made
out of three strange quarks, and it was actually Gelman
predicted it. He stood up at a conference and made
this prediction, which is sort of ballsy, and then it
was observed and people believe that they were real.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
Now the corks were hypothetical or do we eventually see
them individually like at a collider?
Speaker 1 (17:36):
Yeah, great question. For a long time, people believe the
math of these quarks and they said, all right, well
the math works, but they're kind of hypothetical. But then
there was sort of a philosophical debate about whether they're
real or hypothetical because you can't actually see them by themselves.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
You cannot you.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
Cannot ever see a quark by itself. Yeah. The quarks
feel this strong force, which is much stronger than electromagnetism,
for example, and they're so tight bound together. There's so
much energy in their interaction. If you pull them apart.
That energy creates more quarks basically to shield it. It's
such a powerful force that it always neutralizes itself the
(18:12):
same way like lightning is neutralizing any charge difference between
the ground and clouds. Because electromagntism is so powerful, the
strong force does that as well, very very rapidly. So
quarks can never be seen on their own. You can
only ever see them put together in these various combinations.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
WHOA, So, then what makes you think that's an individual particle?
Like if you never see some it alone, how do
you know it's like a thing.
Speaker 1 (18:36):
Yeah, that's a great philosophical question, and you can actually
ask the same question of basically anything. You could even
ask that question of the electron, Like we never see
the electron by itself. An electron is actually surrounded by
a cloud of virtual particles, including lots of photons. You
never actually probe the pure individual electron. So everything is
just sort of like part of the fabric of reality.
(18:58):
It's a bit of a philosophical question, and you declare
that it's real. We have these models, we do these calculations.
They're accurate, they predict the results of experiments, and so
we think that probably they're real, But you know, we
could be totally wrong. The whole story we're telling about
the nature of the universe and how particles work could
also just be totally wrong. The whole thing could just
be an elaborate mathematical tool that mostly works. So it's
(19:21):
actually a pretty subtle philosophical question what's real out there
and what's just sort of part of the story we're telling.
Speaker 2 (19:26):
Well, you mean, we only actually think the quirk exists.
Dot dot maybe.
Speaker 1 (19:32):
Yeah, dot dot maybe, But there are some very powerful
arguments that at least it's the right way to think
about the universe. Whether it's like philosophically true and out
there is sort of another question I see.
Speaker 2 (19:43):
It could be maybe like a non particle or some
sort of weird thing that we can grasp our heads around.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
It could be that there's another way to think of
what's inside these particles that works better. Because one problem
we have is that the strong force is so powerful
it's very difficult to make calculations with. Like, you get
things a little bit wrong, and the power of the
force makes things very very wrong, So it's very difficult
to make predictions with Unlike electromagnetism, where we can make
very very precise predictions about exactly what happens when two
(20:12):
electrons bounce off each other, when two quarks collide, it's
a huge mess, and we don't know how to do
those calculations very well. So that might be a sign
that we have it like the wrong idea. Maybe when
aliens come, they'll have a better theory for what's going
on inside all these particles, and it's just much simpler
and crisper, and the mathematics of it makes sense.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
All right, Well, let's get into which quarks, if they
do exist, are in the proton, and why we think
the produc may or may not be charming. So let's
dig into that, but first let's take a quick break.
(20:53):
All right, we're talking about whether there are charm quarks
inside the proton. That's the I guess, the question on
every once minds these days.
Speaker 1 (21:02):
You know, you joke, but it's actually a hot topic
that's been debated in particle physics for it literally decades,
whether the proton has charm in it or whether it's
just made of ups and.
Speaker 2 (21:12):
Downs, That's what I mean. It's like it's on everyone's mind, right.
Speaker 1 (21:18):
And it's been a question basically since the charm cork
was discovered. I mean you ask about, like, why do
we think that quarks are real? I think the moment
that the whole community went from these are cute, but
we don't know to yeah, these are real was this
day in November in nineteen seventy four, when the charm
cork was discovered.
Speaker 2 (21:37):
What happened.
Speaker 1 (21:37):
It's called the November Revolution because it's so dramatic, and
this is the moment when the charm cork was shown
to be real. Experiments declared the discovery of the charm
cork because the picture of having only three quarks, the up,
the down, and the strange was a little weird, like
the up and the down are sort of paired together.
The strange cork is a lot like the down cork.
It has the same electric charge or whatever, sort of
(21:59):
like a cuss of the down cork. And people were wondering, like,
is there a cousin of the upcork? Shouldn't the upcork
also have a cousin? Shouldn't there be like patterns and
symmetries and balance on all that stuff. So people predicted, Okay,
this cork should exist out there. If these are real
there should be another one, and so people were looking
for this cork. And they were actually two competing groups,
(22:20):
one at MIT led by Sam King and another one
at Stanford led by Burt Richter, both looking for the
charm cork, and they declared discovery of the charm cork
on the same day in dueling press conferences across the
country from each other, and they gave the particle. The
charm cork makes different names.
Speaker 2 (22:38):
What what did they name them?
Speaker 1 (22:40):
So the charm cork combines with an anti charm cork
to make this particle. Sam Ting called it the J particle.
Apparently J is sort of similar to the character for
his name in Chinese. Bert Richter called it the Si
particle because he liked Greek names for particles. And so
the same day we had a new particle given two
different names that Jay and lipsidh.
Speaker 2 (23:01):
M like at the exact same minute, don't they doesn't
count like which minute you make the announcement.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
In the Internet era, it does kind of matter. People
like time their papers to try to get them on
the archive at the top of the list on the
first day or whatever to avoid being scooped. But I
think back then the resolution of this stuff was more
like dependent on like sending letters and mail, So if
you made your announcements on the same day, counts as
two independent discoveries that are basically simultaneous. But there is
(23:28):
a lot of drama about how they happened to make
these discoveries on the same day because Sam King's experiment
was very slow. He was going to take like a
year to figure this stuff out, but he didn't have
to know where to look. It was like a very
general kind of experiment. Bert Richter could discover this thing
in like a few hours if somebody told him exactly
where to look. And Richter did an initial skin and
(23:50):
didn't see it. He sort of like accidentally skipped over it.
And the story is like maybe somebody on Sam King's
team tipped off Bert Richter and told him exactly where
to look so that he could do the experiment and
coming with a discovery at exactly the same moment as
the MIT team. Nobody knows for sure what happened.
Speaker 2 (24:08):
Like I kinda make espionage, yeah or something.
Speaker 1 (24:11):
There's a lot of crazy stories, some of which are
not safe for podcasting, which you can google and hear about.
But to this day we have not settled.
Speaker 2 (24:19):
This not safe for podcasting. How solacious is this story?
Speaker 1 (24:25):
There are stories about scatological sabotage of various experiments.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
What you mean involving bodily fluids, Yes, exactly, M. I
think that's safe for podcasting, but maybe I'm not desirable
talk about in a podcast.
Speaker 1 (24:41):
It just sees to show you that there's sort of
high drama, and you know, Nobel prizes were on the line.
In the end, both of these guys won the Nobel Prize.
They shared it for the discovery of this particle. Two
charm quarks bound together. And we still call the particle
j SI. We give it both names because we couldn't
figure out how to settle this dispute.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
And so this is the moment you're saying that the
charm cork was discovered. Because this particle is made out
of two charm corks. What made them think it was
made out of two charm quarks?
Speaker 1 (25:09):
It has all the properties that they predicted if the
charm cork exists, they predicted that it would form this particle,
which has about twice the mass of an individual charm cork,
and it would decay in certain ways and the angles
of those decays, so it basically looked exactly like what
they expected, and there's no other way to explain this particle.
And they can't explain this particle with just upquarks, down
(25:30):
quarks and strange quarks. So that told them, ah, there
must be this new quark out there, and that made
people feel like, Okay, quarks are real because we've predicted
a quark and then seen it. It's not just descriptive.
It's not like we're just using it to tell a
story about what we've already seen. It's helping us understand
future experiments.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
All right. So that's how we discovered the charm cork.
Now I guess the question is is there one inside
the proton?
Speaker 1 (25:54):
So the simple story is no. I mean, this initial
description of quarks as the building blocks of all these
weird particles tell us that the proton is made of
two upquarks and one down cork, and that works because
the math is really weird for these particles. Like an
upcork has charged two thirds, like an electron is charged
minus one An upcork has charged two thirds, it's like
(26:17):
fractionally charged, and the down cork has charged minus one third.
So you add up two upquarks, you did four thirds
of a charge. You add a down cork and it
brings it back down to plus one. So the proton
is explained in terms of two upcorks and a down cork,
and that's a nice simple story, but like everything else
in physics, there's always more to it.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
Now is that the only difference between an upcork and
a down cork is there electrical charge.
Speaker 1 (26:43):
They're also difference in mass. The upcork is lower mass
than the down cork, and they have differences in their
other charges. Remember, the electrical charge is how we talk
about the electromagnetic interaction. Things that have electrical charge interact electromagnetically.
Things that don't don't interact electromagnetically, like a new trino
no electric charge. No electromagnetic interaction ignores electric fields. But
(27:05):
particles have other kinds of charges, Like if you feel
the weak force, you have weak charges, and the weak
force is very complicated. It has two different kinds of charge.
So the upcork and the down cork are different also
in their weak charges how they interact with the weak field.
Speaker 2 (27:22):
And so then the charm cork is just like an
upcorek just heavier or why do you call it a
cousin of the upcork.
Speaker 1 (27:28):
Yeah, because it has all the same charges as the upcork.
It's charged two thirds electromagnetically, it has the same spin
as the upcork. It has the same weak charges as
the upquirk. So if you make like a periodic table
of the fundamental particles, it just makes sense to put
the charm there next to the upcork, the way the
strange is next to the down cork. Because the down
and the strange they have all the same electrical charges
(27:51):
and the weak charges, and so these particles are very
similar to each other except their difference in.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
Mass, meaning that it just has more mass an quark
but just heavier.
Speaker 1 (28:01):
Yeah, it's an upcork, but just heavier. And that's explained,
of course, because of its interactions with the Higgs boson.
The charm interacts more with the Higgs field, and so
it has more mass than the upcork, and not by
a little bit. It has like six hundred times the
mass of the upcork. It's actually more massive than the proton.
Speaker 2 (28:20):
Okay, so then you're saying that the question of whether
there are charm quarks inside the proton. The answer is no,
maybe question mark, So why the no.
Speaker 1 (28:29):
So the simplest story is just like you've got three quarks,
You're done. But think about how those quarks are actually
stuck together. How do quarks come together to make a proton.
They don't like physically click together like pieces of a puzzle.
They're bound together. There's a force that holds them together
the same way they like a proton and an electron
together make a hydrogen atom because of the electromagnetic force.
(28:51):
The quarks are bound together with the strong force, which
means that there's a bunch of gluons there also inside
the proton. So the proton is like two up quarks
in a day and a zillion gluons in between them.
So already we know there is a little bit more
to the proton than just the quarks.
Speaker 2 (29:07):
M I guess maybe I'm getting a little confused because
a proton, you said, is two up quarks and a
down courek, and a neutron, for example, is two down
quarks and one upquark. Yes, so it's sort of like
the same, but you just switch one.
Speaker 1 (29:22):
Of the quarks exactly. And that's why beta de cave
requires just switching one down or up or back and forth.
Speaker 2 (29:29):
M Okay. So now we're asking if the proton has
a different kind of quark in it. But if we
change the quarks in a proton, it wouldn't be a
proton anymore, would it.
Speaker 1 (29:38):
A proton is a proton is a proton. That's just
the thing we find in nature. The question is what's
in it. It might be that the proton's innerds are
different from what we've been describing. For a while, our
story might have been a little bit wrong. So if
there are charm quarks also inside a proton, then that's
what a proton is. We're not talking about replacing one
(29:59):
of the upwork with a charm We're asking if there
are more quarks in there, if it's not just up,
up and down, if there's extra other little bits in there.
Speaker 2 (30:07):
Oh, I see, Like a proton is still proton with
two up quarks and a down quark. But like, maybe
is there a charm cork jammed in there somehow? Yeah,
we haven't seen before.
Speaker 1 (30:17):
Mm hmmm, exactly are there like little bits quantum mechanically
of charm cork hanging out in there?
Speaker 2 (30:23):
Okay? And this is the burning question in particle physics, Now,
why do you even have this question? Why? Why do
you think there might be charm quarks inside the proton?
Speaker 1 (30:31):
Well, we're always just curious, like what is stuff made
out of? We want to know definitively, like what is
a proton? Because the proton's the basic building block of
everything out there in the universe. When the universe cooled
and stuff slowed down, this is what it decided to make,
mostly protons. So, like you want to know the answer
to the question, how does our universe work? What's it
made out of? You got to understand the proton, and
(30:53):
so we're always happy with the first answer, But then
we want to dig deeper and say is that the
total story? Is there more going on to the proton?
And then there are hints, there are hints that maybe
there is something else. And one of the hints is
that we know that the glue between those particles has
the capacity to make more quarks. Like those gluons we
talked about that stick the upcorks and down corks together.
(31:14):
They don't just hang out and stay gluons. Sometimes they
turn it to quarks and then back. So you could
have a gluon in the proton that's flying around. All
of a sudden it turns into a bottom cork and
an anti bottom cork, and then back into a gluon.
So if you shoot a probe at a proton, sometimes
you hit the main quarks, the upcorks and the down quarks.
Sometimes you hit a gluon. Sometimes you hit a bottom cork.
(31:37):
Sometimes you hit a charm cork, sometimes you hit a
top cork. It's a big frothing mess.
Speaker 2 (31:41):
It sounds like it did sort of like quantum mechanical magic,
where there's like an infinite number of particles popping into
existence probabilistically. But we still say that the proton is
made out of three quarks, right, then those are more
real than the other imaginary quarks.
Speaker 1 (31:56):
Yeah, those are the intrinsic quarks. We say the two
upcork and the down cork are like the building block
of the proton because they're there all the time, right,
they're just always part of the proton. They sort of
define what the proton is. And we know that the
gluons that they're slashing around and that, as you say,
quantum mechanically, sometimes if you poke into them they can
be turning into something else and you caught them in
(32:17):
the act, and maybe you can interact with that particle.
But we think about those as like extrinsic particles. We
don't think of those as necessarily part of the proton itself,
because the energy to create those and to make that
interaction happen comes from the collision, Like you want to
smash two protons together to see what's inside and to
interact with those gluons. Then the energy to make like
(32:39):
the bottom cork or whatever else other weird quarks you're
talking about, comes from the energy you've put in. And
so we're interested in more deeply the question like what's
the proton itself made out of? And so this is
the question people have been asking, like, when a proton
is just sitting there by itself, does it also still
have some charm cork in it?
Speaker 4 (32:58):
So?
Speaker 2 (32:58):
Wait, are you asking whether the proton has in addition
to the up, up and down as intrinsic quarks, does
it also have an intrinsic charm cork to it?
Speaker 1 (33:08):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (33:09):
Are you asking whether it has a lot of extrinsic
charm forks in it?
Speaker 1 (33:13):
We already know it has a lot of extrinsic charm corks,
like it has extrinsic everything, because the gluons have so
much energy and if you interact with them, they can
basically make anything. We're asking whether it has intrinsic charm cork,
Like when a proton is just sitting there, does it
also actually have some charm cork in it? And that's
conception a little hard to get your mind around, because like,
(33:33):
what does that mean. We're talking about these three particles
make up the quark, right, Remember that everything we're talking
about is quantum mechanical, and so really we're talking about
making the picture of the proton a little bit more complicated,
not just like there are three particles, but like there
are more options here. Sometimes it has two upquarks in
a down Sometimes one of those is a charm cork.
(33:56):
Sometimes one of those is an upcark. Sometimes one of
those is a down cork. A little bit more of
a complicated mixture of these particles. If there is intrinsic
charm in the proton.
Speaker 2 (34:07):
Hmm okay, So you're sort of saying, like, if we
have the picture that it's made out of two upquarks
and when it down quark, but maybe the picture is
more like it's changing all the time, like maybe the
proton is transforming inside of itself into different combinations of quarks.
Speaker 1 (34:22):
Yes, exactly, And so people have been trying to answer
this question for a long time. They've been doing it
the only way that we know how, which is to
try to break open the proton, throw other protons at it,
or throw electrons add it, smash something into it. It's
tricky though, because you want to distinguish between the scenario
where like the proton has intrinsic charm quarks in it,
(34:42):
you know, like the internals of it is like changing
back and forth from upquarks to charm quarks, or you're
creating charmqirks when you collide. You're manufacturing these extrinsic charm
quirks in the process of probing it. It's been a
very difficult set of experiments to do to distinguish between
the charm quarks we see in the proto are they
intrinsic or are they extrinsic? Not an easy experiment.
Speaker 2 (35:04):
Mmmm, all right, Well, let's dig into the details of
this experiment and what it tells us about what's really
inside a proton or what a proton really is actually
made out of So let's dig into that. But first
let's take another quick break. All right, we're asking what's
(35:32):
really inside the proton? Is it just two up quarks
and a down quark as we've been told, or as
you and I have been telling people for years now. Daniel,
I feel like maybe you're now calling his liars because
it turns out that maybe the question of whether there's
more to the proton than just these quarks, like maybe
(35:53):
it's insides are changing all the time, from two up
quarks and downcork to something else which involves another kind
of cork, the trump part.
Speaker 1 (36:01):
I think everything we've been telling people for years has
an implicit comma maybe dot dot dot at the end
of it.
Speaker 2 (36:07):
I feel like, if you wanted to make that explicit,
maybe we should make it more explicit than you. We
wis should rename the podcast Daniel and Jore Explain the
Universe dot dot dot.
Speaker 1 (36:18):
Maybe you know, it's just part of our scientific storytelling
or always trying to come up with a way to
describe the universe and then figuring out, oh, that doesn't
actually capture all the details. Let's add some bells and
whistles or let's simplify it. Well, let's throw the whole
thing out and explain it in another way. It's just
part of the journey.
Speaker 2 (36:38):
I mean, I feel like maybe all this time you
could have just added, like we think that this is
what it's made out of, not like I feel like
for years have been saying, oh, yes, the proton is
made out of two upcourse into the un cord, like
that's a fact, but maybe it's not.
Speaker 1 (36:52):
Well, you know, when you're introducing people to really weird
complex topics, you have to do it bit by bid.
And if you start with all the qualifiers, all the
reasons why don't understand it, they're never going to get
to the things we think we maybe do understand.
Speaker 2 (37:05):
I think people can handle scientists think or we think
it's made out of this.
Speaker 1 (37:11):
I guess I feel like that's implied with everything that
comes out of my mouth. Anyway, for now on, listeners,
insert a scientist think in front of everything. You hear
me say, that's right.
Speaker 2 (37:21):
Maybe we should have like one of those quick read
disclaimers at the end of each episode, like Daniel Horry explained,
the universe has not been verified by the FDA or
a valid international physics organization.
Speaker 1 (37:34):
Even valid international physics organizations. They just think stuff. Man,
they can be wrong.
Speaker 2 (37:39):
Well, some things are more verified by experiments than others.
Speaker 1 (37:42):
Right, yes, yes, that's true, and that's what we're trying
to capture here in the podcast, the current mainstream thinking
for how the universe works.
Speaker 2 (37:50):
All right, well, I guess we'll tell Coreyer engineer to
just add that disclaimer at the end of every episode
from now and retroactively. Maybe also, can you do that?
You know, maybe we've been deceiving people for five years, Daniel.
Speaker 1 (38:05):
Well, you know, they got to stick around for the twist.
Speaker 2 (38:07):
The twist where we revealed that we liked.
Speaker 1 (38:09):
These are approximations.
Speaker 2 (38:13):
They're not lying, I see, the betrayal.
Speaker 1 (38:17):
Good faith explanations.
Speaker 2 (38:19):
All right, So the idea is that the proton is
mostly mind to up quarks and a down cork. But
maybe you think there's a possibility that that changes sometimes. Yeah,
And so you're saying, first you said, the simple answer
is that no, there's no charm cork in the proton.
Why was that No?
Speaker 1 (38:36):
Again, that's just the sort of simplest answer, and it's
also short of common sense. The charm cork has more
mass than the proton. So it's sort of like saying
that the proton is less than the sum of its
parts if it has like a little bit of charm
cork in.
Speaker 2 (38:48):
It, meaning like it's mostly two ups and quarks in
that down cork. Right. Yeah, that's why the basic answer
is no. But then you're saying, maybe there's more going on.
Maybe it does change into some charminess sometimes. Is that
what's going on?
Speaker 1 (39:02):
Yeah, exactly, because in quantum mechanics, anything that can happen
will happen, and we don't see a reason why you
can't sometimes have charm quarks hanging out inside the proton.
But these calculations are really hard to do. You know.
Quantum chromodynamics, the theory that explains how the strong interactions
work and how quarks come together to make particles, is
(39:22):
a bear to work with. We can't even do things
like calculate from first principles what the mass of the
proton should be or the mass of these other particles.
It's like very very difficult to do anything with. So
it's dominated by experiments. We have to go out and
actually measure this stuff and see what's in the universe
and then try to figure out how to explain it
with our calculations, because we're really limited in the calculations
(39:45):
we can do here. And so people have been doing
experiments to see like what's inside the proton for a
few decades now, and there were some hints, oh, look,
this experiment says there actually is some charm inside the proton,
some intrinsic charm, not charm that's created when we collide
stuff together other out of that energy, but charm that
was already there. And then another experiment that came along
said Nope, we don't see any charm. And these things
(40:07):
were limited because we didn't have enough data, we didn't
have enough energy, we didn't have enough power. But recently,
because the large Hadron Collider, we have more data, we
have more energy, we can get more definitive measurements for
what's inside the proton.
Speaker 2 (40:19):
M I feel like you're talking about charm, like it's
a property, like riz, you know, or like actual charm.
Is it like a property? I thought we were talking
about the charm quark.
Speaker 1 (40:30):
Saying whether it has charm is just shorthand for saying
whether there's a probability to find charm quarks in the proton.
But we are changing a little bit what we mean
by it's made out of right, we think of the
atom is made out of protons, neutrons, and electrons. Like
you have those things as ingredients, you put them together,
and now you call it an atom. Here is a
little bit different. It's a little fuzzyer. It's a little
(40:52):
bit more quantum mechanical. We're saying, like the wave function
of the proton has components of the upcork and the
down cork, and maybe this is a component there for
the charm cork, not like the charm cork is always there,
but there's always a probability for it. So it changes
a little bit what we mean by like this proton
is made of something.
Speaker 2 (41:11):
But I guess then you get into the question of
like where do you draw the line quantum mechanically, it
is technically possible for my body to suddenly turn into
the body of Brad Pitt, right, Like that's a quantum
mechanical probability. It's very small, but it is technically a
possibility right in this universe.
Speaker 1 (41:29):
Yeah, I mean, I think you're both equally chamming, so
you're already there.
Speaker 2 (41:34):
Yeah, Brad Pitt is very chamming, but just because I
can turn into Brad Pitt at any moment doesn't mean
that I am Brad Pitt mm hm.
Speaker 1 (41:42):
But you can ask the question if I call Jorge
a thousand times, what fraction the time does Brad answer?
Speaker 3 (41:48):
Right?
Speaker 2 (41:48):
M m. And well, even if it's like one in
a trillion or what point what number of phone calls
should I change my name to Brad Pitt?
Speaker 1 (41:56):
Yeah? Well, if you've always called Jorge and Brad has
never answered the you can't say that there's a Brad
contribution to Jorge. But as soon as it happens, then boom,
you've measured the Brad fraction of hoorhe sham.
Speaker 2 (42:10):
And then at what point do you say that I
am made out of Brad Pit.
Speaker 1 (42:13):
When you can measure some Brad in hoorray the time
the Brad answers, that's what will declare you are partially
Brad Pit?
Speaker 2 (42:21):
Like is there a percentage that you would do that?
Just like in the proton, is there a percentage of
charm corking? Is that you would then say yes, the
proton does have a charm cork in it, because technically
it does right now, right there's a very small probability
as you said that things in it can turn into
a charm fork.
Speaker 1 (42:37):
I don't think there's any minimum quantities. As long as
you can measure it. As long as it's large enough
for us to detect it, then we'll say we found
charm in the proton and we know that it's there.
Otherwise it's just sort of theoretical. It's like saying, you know,
is there a teapot a zillion light years away? I mean,
maybe there is, but we'll never detect it, so it's
just theoretical. But as long as we measure some charm
(42:58):
cork in the proton, then we can it's there. Otherwise
it's just like a possibility. And again we can't really
even do the calculations or we can predict theoretically and
to say how much charm there should be in the proton,
So it really has to be led by measurements.
Speaker 3 (43:11):
MM.
Speaker 2 (43:12):
But I guess maybe the question is like, are you
saying that it's possible that the proton has the charm
work in it, or is there maybe something the theory
that says it's impossible, or is that what you're trying
to get at, Like we need to prove it to
make sure that it is possible.
Speaker 1 (43:27):
Yeah, the theory says that it's possible, but the theory
is very fuzzy and very hard to work with. So
the best thing to do is to go out there
and measure the charm fraction of the proton, and that
might help us come back and improve our theories and
get a better grip on what we think is going on.
Speaker 2 (43:42):
I see, so you think that maybe it is possible
for the insights of a proton to turn into a
charm cork, but you're not sure yet because you haven't
seen it or confirmed it exactly in experiments. Some people have,
some people haven't.
Speaker 1 (43:54):
That was the scenario until a couple of years ago,
and then using data at the Large Hadron Collider, we
were able to confirmed that there really is charm cork
inside the proton. So this is that paper that came
out in twenty twenty two that had very powerful statistical
evidence for charm quarks inside protons, which means we're pretty
sure we can say the proton is charming. But you know,
(44:16):
dot dot maybe question mark.
Speaker 2 (44:18):
Well, I feel like the language you're using is maybe confusing,
Like you're not saying it has charm inside of it,
You're saying it sometimes turns into a charm cork. What's
inside of the proton?
Speaker 1 (44:27):
I think the most precise way to say it is
that the wave function for the proton has probabilities for upquarks,
down quarks, and charm quarks. Sometimes when you look inside
the proton, you will find a charm core.
Speaker 2 (44:38):
Hmmm, oh all right, So then it has been experimentally verified.
Speaker 1 (44:42):
You think maybe the latest evidence from about a year
ago is pretty persuasive. It's more than three statistical sigmas
of significance.
Speaker 2 (44:51):
Now, what's the difference there, Like, what's the thing that
makes you more sure rather than not that it's not
like coming from the energy when you collide these particles,
for example, that it's actually there if you don't look
at it.
Speaker 1 (45:04):
It comes from the patterns of how the particles emerge
from the collisions. Like if it's coming from actually inside
the proton, then you'll see these particles come out in
the path that the protons were taking, because then the
charm quirks are moving with the protons as they come
into the collision. If the charm quirk wasn't there the
whole time, it's just made during the collision, you tend
(45:24):
to see these charm quarks fly out more like at
the center. We're just where the collision happens. So there's
some subtle patterns there that people have been looking for.
But the spray of particles. You get a different prediction
if the charm cork was there all the time than
if the charm cork is only created in the moments
of the collision. But it's a subtle effect, which is
why this experiment was very difficult to do and needed
(45:46):
a lot of data and was only wrapped up a
couple of years ago.
Speaker 2 (45:49):
Okay, So now does that mean that the international physics
community has issued a giant apology for all those textbooks
and posters that say that the proton is made out
of up quarks? In it down because all this time
you've been wrong.
Speaker 1 (46:03):
Well, I think we're working on stickers on our web
store that say dot dot dot maybe to be added
to every textbook ever.
Speaker 2 (46:10):
Well no, but I mean it, like, you know, you
walk down the physics department, do you see a poster
with the fundamental theory of particle physics and it's as
that a proton is made out of two upcoorse and
douncork but now you have to change the story.
Speaker 1 (46:23):
It sounds like, yeah, it's an update to the story.
It's part of science evolving and becoming more charming as
we learn more about how the universe works.
Speaker 2 (46:32):
So are you going to change those posters? Do you
think that? Or maybe the question is, do you think
those posters need to be updated?
Speaker 1 (46:38):
Yeah, it's a tough question to sort of pedagogy, like
how do you teach this stuff? You know, the story
is mostly the same, but there are nuances, and so
it might be worth introducing those at the very start,
or it might be worth explaining those as you dig
deeper into the story.
Speaker 2 (46:53):
I understand what you mean, because I do a lot
of science communication. But there's sort of a fine line
between not saying something that's not true yeah, and saying
something that's more complicated.
Speaker 1 (47:02):
Yeah. No, it's a difficult line or walk I agree?
Speaker 2 (47:05):
So which one do you think it is? Do you
think it needs to be updated at some point? If
I say right now that the proton is made out
into upworks and down quarks, you technically would have to
say that's not true, or we think that's not true.
So if I see it on a poster, does that
need to be corrected.
Speaker 1 (47:22):
I think that basically everything we say in quantum mechanics
and in particle physics is an approximation. So from that perspective,
like nothing is exactly true, there's always qualifications anywhere to.
Speaker 2 (47:33):
Take exactly I don't say anything.
Speaker 1 (47:36):
At all, but it's still worth saying. It's still worth
introducing people to these ideas, even if the story we
tell at first is only approximately true and the end
all of our understanding is probably only approximately true.
Speaker 2 (47:47):
Well, I mean, I feel like some things are stronger
than others. Like you can say an atom is made
out of protons and electrons. There's no cavea to that,
is there.
Speaker 1 (47:54):
Well, there's other stuff in there, right, The photons can
turn into other particles, and so when you interact with
an atom, some times you find W bosons and z
bosons inside there.
Speaker 2 (48:03):
In addition to the electrons and protons. But the elections
and protons are still there.
Speaker 1 (48:07):
Nope, elections and protons are still there all right.
Speaker 2 (48:09):
Well, another interesting insight into how we're still firing things out.
The universe is vast and mysterious, and our current theories
may change tomorrow or today, or maybe they should have changed,
a while ago.
Speaker 1 (48:22):
We're here trying to explain, are constantly evolving understanding to you?
Speaker 2 (48:26):
All right, Well, we hope you enjoyed that. Thanks for
joining us, See you next time.
Speaker 1 (48:35):
For more science and curiosity, come find us on social
media where we answer questions and post videos. We're on Twitter, Discord, Insta,
and now TikTok. Thanks for listening, and remember that Daniel
and Jorge Explain the Universe is a production of iHeartRadio.
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
(48:55):
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. N
Hey, or hey, if we found a new quark, what
would you call it?
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Pedro or vn? Well, what are the current ones called?
Speaker 1 (00:21):
Well, there's up, down, charm, strange, top, and bottom.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Oh, man, I feel like you can only go up
from there.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
You're pretty down on these names. I mean they're pretty strange.
I personally find them kind of charming.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
I guess you do like things that are off color.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
You might think this whole scheme needs a rewrite from
the top.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
All right, well let's dive in. Bottoms up. Hi, I'm
Horae madkerk Doda and the author of Oliver's Great Big Universe.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
Hi, I'm Daniel. I'm a particle physicist and a professor
at U c Irvine, and I hope to one day
be involved in a big argument about how to name
a new particle.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
Oh, you're not involved yet. I mean, don't you guys
name things before you discover them.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
Yeah, that's true. We do name hypothetical particles that might
not even be part of the universe.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Can I lay a stick to that? Like, Hey, if
anyone ever discovers a quark in the future, I'm naming
it the Whore.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
I think you can call it whatever you like, Yeah,
whether it catches on is another question.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
No, but I said it first. Doesn't that count? Do
you have dibbs? In physics?
Speaker 1 (01:47):
There is no DIBs and physics we even have disagreements
about what to name things which go.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
On for decades. What if I name the the dibbs?
It DIBs both. But anyways, welcome to our podcast Daniel
and Jorge Explain the Universe, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
Where we want to be the first to explain everything
about the universe to you, from how all the tiny
little particles work, from their interactions to their little bits
of matter, to their quantum fields and the way they
work together to make everything that's glorious and delicious and
badly named in the universe.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
That's right, because it is a strange and charming universe
out there, full of mysteries that we are still discovering.
New discoveries are still being made even today about how
the universe works and what are all the things in it.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
One way to answer the question how does the universe
work is to figure out what its tiniest bits are
and what rules they follow. In some sense, that would
be an explanation because it's sort of the most fundamental description.
In another sense, it's sort of lacking a lot of
connection to reality. Even if you understand the tiny little bits,
you don't necessarily understand why BlackBerry ice cream is so delicious.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
Yeah, and it's pretty amazing that we've discovered so much
about what matter is made out of. Given that we
have these kind of soft, squishy eyeballs, it really don't
work all that well. All the time, we have augmented
our bare senses with all sorts of amazing technological eyeballs,
things that can gather ancient photons while orbiting the Earth,
(03:21):
and devices that poke and probe little bits of matter
to reveal their structure, or even as simple as reading glasses,
which I forgot today to bring. So that's why I'm
only about eighty percent sure of what we're talking about today.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
Is that up from usual seventy five percent?
Speaker 2 (03:39):
I guess, I mean eighty percent sure? What's on this
page in front of me?
Speaker 1 (03:43):
I see? Well, you know, I think we've been working
together for more than a decade before I even learned
that you wore glasses.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
Oh well, I only just started wearing reading glasses maybe
a year or two ago. It came pretty fast.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
I see. So you're saying, after ten years of working
with Daniel, you're incurring actual physical damage. That's right.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
I al was talking about tiny microscopic particles. I mean
that would ruin anyone's eyesight.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
All right, there you have it, folks, a health warning
for this podcast. We're five years in, which means you're
all five years away from ruining your eyesight.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
M well, I did worse glasses for a long time.
Then I got laser surgery, which is amazing. But now
I'm getting older any reading glasses, which totally stinks. You
haven't hit that wall yet.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
I've been wearing glasses since I was a teenager, and
I'm definitely not getting my eyeballs lasered. Oh no, but.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
Aren't you physicists? Don't you trust the lasers.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
I'm a physicist, so I definitely don't trust the lasers.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
What have they made a lazing operation that? Did you
see subpotomic particles?
Speaker 1 (04:44):
Oh boy? Yeah? Well, I would definitely volunteer other people
for it and ask them all sorts of questions about it.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
Really, you wouldn't want to see particles with your naked eye.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
No, I prefer augmented technological eyeballs, and to keep my
eyeballs unaltered.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
I want to see here, like take a picture.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
Exactly, build me device, put the picture on a screen.
I'm happy with that.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
But anyways, it would be amazing to see at that
microscopic level because we would discover maybe what matter is
actually made out of.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
And we have made a lot of progress over the
years and figuring out what the tiny little bits are
that click together to explain our world and what the
tiny bits inside those bits are and how they work together.
But there are still lots and lots of questions, not
just questions about the crazy weird particles we may or
may not discover as colliders, but questions about what you
(05:34):
and I are actually made out of.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
That's right, It's been a long road to discover the
building blocks of stuff around us. We started with tiny
hypothetical particles made out of earth, wind and fire, right,
That's how the Greeks started, and then we moved on
to atoms.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
I don't know if the Greeks thought about like wind
particles and fire particles. They had lots of different crazy
ideas about how the universe works. But yeah, you can
do di dot from there to quiet Field theory.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
Yeah, I isn't know what zoos is. Isn't zoos basically
like a particle, the lightning particle.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
The Zeus particle. And I don't think I've ever heard
that phrase before. That sounds like a really awesome young
adult thriller.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
That sounds like what we should name the next next
particle I discover, or that I propose we discovered.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
Well, some people do call the Higgs boson the god particles,
so maybe we should just broaden that, you know, we
should have the Jehovah particle.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
And that's right, be more inclusive about all religions.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
Really, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
But it has been a pretty amazing road to discover
what things are made of. And at some point, I
guess people discovered that we're made out of atoms, right.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
Yeah, that's right. That's the first step, and it's in
some ways the most amazing, the most incredible, the biggest
sort of intellectual leap. They say that all the craziness
in the universe, the almost infinite variety of stuff out there,
can be explained with a small set of basic building blocks,
the atoms. The about one hundred elements of the periodic
table can be put together in all sorts of ways
(07:02):
to explain everything that we've ever seen. Like philosophically, it's
not obvious that we would have to live in a
universe that works that way, where the arrangements of the
smallest bits explain the complexity that we experience.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
Yeah, I mean, it could have been that we lived
in a universe where everything was made out of earth,
wind and fire, right.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
Yeah, Or everything could have been made out of its
own different kind of stuff. Everything out there in the
universe could have had its own elemental particle that explains it.
But instead it seems like as you dig deeper and
deeper into the firmament of the universe, things weirdly get simpler.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
And so we cracked open matter to discoverage made out
of atoms, and then at some point we cracked open
the atom to find out that it's made out of
smaller particles.
Speaker 1 (07:45):
Yeah, the nucleus has protons and neutrons, and then surrounding
those are electrons, and those protons and neutrons themselves, we
discovered are also not fundamental bits of the universe. They
are made of even smaller particles bound together with an
incredibly powerful force.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
Yeah, and so we have a name for those particles.
They're called quarks, and we think we know maybe what
all the quarks are.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
We think we know, maybe that's definitely a good summary
of the physics of basically anything.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
We think we know that maybe basic size, isn't it?
Or really that's just human reality and anything that's out there.
We just think we know it's there.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
Yeah, and at a comma, maybe at the end and
you're golden or.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
Or a question mark.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
But the story isn't over.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
Maybe, And so.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
You've probably been told a familiar story about how the
proton is made out of two different quarks, the upquark
and the down but that's not the end of the story, Comma.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
Maybe it never is. Yeah, there might be only two
kinds of quarks inside of the proton, but is that
really the case? And so to the on the podcast,
we'll be tackling the question are there quarks inside the proton?
Are we basically asking if the proton is charming?
Speaker 1 (09:06):
We're asking about it's chat Yeah, is it good at
having conversations or is it kind of dull?
Speaker 2 (09:10):
Does it have riz? Is a proton? Rizzy?
Speaker 1 (09:16):
Should you take a proton out with you on Friday night?
To be your wingman or wing woman, that's.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
Right, or would it be too charming? You don't want
you don't want that? Yeah, as your wingman or wing particle.
Speaker 1 (09:32):
We are in our desperate efforts to be relevant to
modern culture here.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
Yeah, or to pretend we're young and still go out
on Friday nights. I mean, come on, let's face it,
my Friday nights are and do not involve putting on
anything besides pajama.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
Let me just squint through my reading glasses to read
the latest slaying the youth for saying that.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
Like charisma.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
Oh is that what riz is short for?
Speaker 2 (09:59):
I was wondering, Oh man, you're even worse than me.
I guess you are older than.
Speaker 1 (10:03):
Me, am. I I'm rounding up to fifty for sure.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
So well, I guess it's it's charmed, the same as
charisma sort of.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
How would you shorten charm harm arm arm?
Speaker 2 (10:15):
Obviously? I mean I think we all associate cham with charm.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
And when I heard that word before cham about what
is that? Can't place it?
Speaker 2 (10:26):
Yeah? Yeah, pretty soon all the kids will say, like,
oh man, that that kid really has cham.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
Yeah he's so chamming, he's a champion, that's right, Yes,
with a cham pion. There you go. You are a
particle a man.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
Yeah, gosh, you brought it back around to particle physics. Yes,
the Champion, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
Exactly, it's already a particle name after you, and.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
I hear it's the best one. It's like it beat
out all the other particles. All right, Well, this is
an interesting question. Are there charm forks inside the proton? Well,
first of all, I feel like maybe not a lot
of people know the conventional wisdom, which is that there
are only two of the other kinds of quarks in
the proton.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
Yeah. The story you're usually told is that the proton
is made of just two kinds of quarks, the upquark
and the down quark. These are the lightest quarks that
exist out there, the ones that are stable and usually
seen as the basic building blocks of matter.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
Yeah, And so the question is is there a third
kind of quark inside the proton? And is it charming
or is it kind of an annoying quark?
Speaker 1 (11:31):
Is the whole thing kind of strange?
Speaker 2 (11:32):
All right? Well, as usually, we were wondering how many
people out there had thought about this question or wondered
what exactly is inside the proton?
Speaker 1 (11:39):
Thanks very much to everybody who participates in this segment.
We'd love to hear your voice on the podcast, so
please write to me. Get over that barrier that's been
preventing you from participating, and send me an email to
questions at Danielandjorge dot com.
Speaker 2 (11:53):
So think about it for a second. Do you think
the proton is charming? Here's what people had to say.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
Is positively charged. I think something charming, it's positive Yes.
Speaker 3 (12:06):
I believe that a proton is made up of up
quarks and down quarks, so I'm going to say no
to the charm quark.
Speaker 4 (12:19):
I like the sound of charm quarks. I'm picturing that
character from Star Trek now as he's trying to do
a deal. That's a charm quark. I'm not sure what
a charm quark is, but if there were quarks, there
are up quarks and down quarks inside the proton, right,
So I would say that if there are quarks, they're
(12:42):
inside a proton. So yes, there are charm quarks inside
the proton, and I look forward to learning exactly what
a charm quark is.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
All right, some interesting ideas here, little Star Trek reference here,
that was a star trek T andg reference.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
Right, Yeah, I'm pretty sure quark only peer in the
next generation and he is kind of charming.
Speaker 3 (13:03):
Mmmm.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
All right, well, most people seem positive that the proton
is charming, although there was one person who said.
Speaker 1 (13:10):
No, Yeah, some people have heard the story that protons
are just made of up quarks and down quarks.
Speaker 2 (13:16):
All right, well, let's dig into it, Danielle. Maybe start
with the basics. What is a quark and what is
a charming one, and what is it not charming quark?
Speaker 1 (13:23):
So, quarks are the particles that we see inside the
proton and inside the neutron, and also inside a bunch
of other particles that we've seen in collisions and in
cosmic rays, like chaons and pions and other particles that
are not stable. But when you smash these particles together,
you discover that there really are smaller bits inside of them,
(13:44):
and those are the particles we call quarks.
Speaker 2 (13:48):
How are quarks named, by the way.
Speaker 1 (13:49):
How are the individual quarks named? Or how is the
word quark invented?
Speaker 2 (13:54):
Yeah? Like, how did they come up with the word quark?
Like it sounds kind of quirky? Was that a real
before that they discovered the particle or did they invent
any word?
Speaker 1 (14:03):
Yeah, so it's a really interesting story. Quark actually is
a thing out there in the world. It's like a
yogurty thing that is eaten in Germany and other parts
of Europe. But in English, quarks were named by Murray Gellman,
and he actually took the word from a James Joyce
poem Finnigan's Wake, where it says three quarks from master Mark.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
What did James Joyce mean by it?
Speaker 1 (14:25):
Well, there's some debate, of course, because James Joyce is
a poet and so they never like use words in
the ways that people expect.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
Meaning it was a typo, maybe.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
A genius typo, who knows. But the word quark here
is like a variation of the word croak, and so
the line in the poem is about like cheering the king.
Three quarks from mister Mark is like three croaks or
three cheers.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
And so the person who discovered these particles picked that
because he thought there were three particles or why did
they pick that word out of that poem.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
He's got a long story for why he pick this,
but essentially it comes down to the fact that there
were three of them at the time, at the time
that he was coming up with a name for it,
we thought that there were three different kinds of quarks,
the up, the down, and the strange, and so he
was looking for something connected to three.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
And by three, you mean like, you know, the more
you do these collisions and you explore what matter is
made out of, you find three different flavors of these particles.
Speaker 1 (15:22):
Right, Yeah, there's three different kinds of these particles that
were initially identified. And it comes out of this era
in particle physics called the particle Zoo, when we turned
on colliders, smashed protons into stuff and saw all sorts
of weird particles come out. When we saw pions, we
saw chaons, we saw mega particles, we saw row particles. Basically,
(15:44):
every time you turned on the collider and added a
bit more energy, you saw new stuff come out. And
so it was a very confusing time in particle physics,
like what are all these particles? Are they all made
from the same thing? Are they all their own different
kind of thing? And quarks was an effort to unify that,
to explain it. Murray Gelmon and other folks realized that
with just three basic particles, the upcork, the down cork,
(16:06):
and the strange quark. You could explain all the particles
zoo is just being different combinations of these three basic
building blocks. The same way you can explain like everything
we experience in terms of one hundred elements. They were
able to explain all of the elements of the particle
Zoo in terms of these just three basic building blocks.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
Like maybe you could say, like a iron is not
like a totally different particle than oxygen or carbon. It's
just like they're just made of different arrangements of the
same particles.
Speaker 1 (16:35):
Yeah, exactly. You can make any element with a certain
number of protons and neutrons and electrons. Right, there's really
only three building blocks there that explain all of that complexity.
In the same way you can make pions out of
an upcork and an anti upcork, you can make chaons
if you mix in some strange quarks. You can make
protons out of three quarks. You can make neutrons out
of three quarks. And so they were able to explain
(16:57):
all of this complexity using three basic building blocks, and
they were even able to predict the existence of particles
we hadn't seen yet. They said, if you mix all
these particles together, there's one way to mix them that
nobody's seen yet. And they predicted that that particle existed,
and then they saw it, and so that's what really
convinced everybody that it was real.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
What was it called?
Speaker 1 (17:16):
So it was the omega minus particle, which was made
out of three strange quarks, and it was actually Gelman
predicted it. He stood up at a conference and made
this prediction, which is sort of ballsy, and then it
was observed and people believe that they were real.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
Now the corks were hypothetical or do we eventually see
them individually like at a collider?
Speaker 1 (17:36):
Yeah, great question. For a long time, people believe the
math of these quarks and they said, all right, well
the math works, but they're kind of hypothetical. But then
there was sort of a philosophical debate about whether they're
real or hypothetical because you can't actually see them by themselves.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
You cannot you.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
Cannot ever see a quark by itself. Yeah. The quarks
feel this strong force, which is much stronger than electromagnetism,
for example, and they're so tight bound together. There's so
much energy in their interaction. If you pull them apart.
That energy creates more quarks basically to shield it. It's
such a powerful force that it always neutralizes itself the
(18:12):
same way like lightning is neutralizing any charge difference between
the ground and clouds. Because electromagntism is so powerful, the
strong force does that as well, very very rapidly. So
quarks can never be seen on their own. You can
only ever see them put together in these various combinations.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
WHOA, So, then what makes you think that's an individual particle?
Like if you never see some it alone, how do
you know it's like a thing.
Speaker 1 (18:36):
Yeah, that's a great philosophical question, and you can actually
ask the same question of basically anything. You could even
ask that question of the electron, Like we never see
the electron by itself. An electron is actually surrounded by
a cloud of virtual particles, including lots of photons. You
never actually probe the pure individual electron. So everything is
just sort of like part of the fabric of reality.
(18:58):
It's a bit of a philosophical question, and you declare
that it's real. We have these models, we do these calculations.
They're accurate, they predict the results of experiments, and so
we think that probably they're real, But you know, we
could be totally wrong. The whole story we're telling about
the nature of the universe and how particles work could
also just be totally wrong. The whole thing could just
be an elaborate mathematical tool that mostly works. So it's
(19:21):
actually a pretty subtle philosophical question what's real out there
and what's just sort of part of the story we're telling.
Speaker 2 (19:26):
Well, you mean, we only actually think the quirk exists.
Dot dot maybe.
Speaker 1 (19:32):
Yeah, dot dot maybe, But there are some very powerful
arguments that at least it's the right way to think
about the universe. Whether it's like philosophically true and out
there is sort of another question I see.
Speaker 2 (19:43):
It could be maybe like a non particle or some
sort of weird thing that we can grasp our heads around.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
It could be that there's another way to think of
what's inside these particles that works better. Because one problem
we have is that the strong force is so powerful
it's very difficult to make calculations with. Like, you get
things a little bit wrong, and the power of the
force makes things very very wrong, So it's very difficult
to make predictions with Unlike electromagnetism, where we can make
very very precise predictions about exactly what happens when two
(20:12):
electrons bounce off each other, when two quarks collide, it's
a huge mess, and we don't know how to do
those calculations very well. So that might be a sign
that we have it like the wrong idea. Maybe when
aliens come, they'll have a better theory for what's going
on inside all these particles, and it's just much simpler
and crisper, and the mathematics of it makes sense.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
All right, Well, let's get into which quarks, if they
do exist, are in the proton, and why we think
the produc may or may not be charming. So let's
dig into that, but first let's take a quick break.
(20:53):
All right, we're talking about whether there are charm quarks
inside the proton. That's the I guess, the question on
every once minds these days.
Speaker 1 (21:02):
You know, you joke, but it's actually a hot topic
that's been debated in particle physics for it literally decades,
whether the proton has charm in it or whether it's
just made of ups and.
Speaker 2 (21:12):
Downs, That's what I mean. It's like it's on everyone's mind, right.
Speaker 1 (21:18):
And it's been a question basically since the charm cork
was discovered. I mean you ask about, like, why do
we think that quarks are real? I think the moment
that the whole community went from these are cute, but
we don't know to yeah, these are real was this
day in November in nineteen seventy four, when the charm
cork was discovered.
Speaker 2 (21:37):
What happened.
Speaker 1 (21:37):
It's called the November Revolution because it's so dramatic, and
this is the moment when the charm cork was shown
to be real. Experiments declared the discovery of the charm
cork because the picture of having only three quarks, the up,
the down, and the strange was a little weird, like
the up and the down are sort of paired together.
The strange cork is a lot like the down cork.
It has the same electric charge or whatever, sort of
(21:59):
like a cuss of the down cork. And people were wondering, like,
is there a cousin of the upcork? Shouldn't the upcork
also have a cousin? Shouldn't there be like patterns and
symmetries and balance on all that stuff. So people predicted, Okay,
this cork should exist out there. If these are real
there should be another one, and so people were looking
for this cork. And they were actually two competing groups,
(22:20):
one at MIT led by Sam King and another one
at Stanford led by Burt Richter, both looking for the
charm cork, and they declared discovery of the charm cork
on the same day in dueling press conferences across the
country from each other, and they gave the particle. The
charm cork makes different names.
Speaker 2 (22:38):
What what did they name them?
Speaker 1 (22:40):
So the charm cork combines with an anti charm cork
to make this particle. Sam Ting called it the J particle.
Apparently J is sort of similar to the character for
his name in Chinese. Bert Richter called it the Si
particle because he liked Greek names for particles. And so
the same day we had a new particle given two
different names that Jay and lipsidh.
Speaker 2 (23:01):
M like at the exact same minute, don't they doesn't
count like which minute you make the announcement.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
In the Internet era, it does kind of matter. People
like time their papers to try to get them on
the archive at the top of the list on the
first day or whatever to avoid being scooped. But I
think back then the resolution of this stuff was more
like dependent on like sending letters and mail, So if
you made your announcements on the same day, counts as
two independent discoveries that are basically simultaneous. But there is
(23:28):
a lot of drama about how they happened to make
these discoveries on the same day because Sam King's experiment
was very slow. He was going to take like a
year to figure this stuff out, but he didn't have
to know where to look. It was like a very
general kind of experiment. Bert Richter could discover this thing
in like a few hours if somebody told him exactly
where to look. And Richter did an initial skin and
(23:50):
didn't see it. He sort of like accidentally skipped over it.
And the story is like maybe somebody on Sam King's
team tipped off Bert Richter and told him exactly where
to look so that he could do the experiment and
coming with a discovery at exactly the same moment as
the MIT team. Nobody knows for sure what happened.
Speaker 2 (24:08):
Like I kinda make espionage, yeah or something.
Speaker 1 (24:11):
There's a lot of crazy stories, some of which are
not safe for podcasting, which you can google and hear about.
But to this day we have not settled.
Speaker 2 (24:19):
This not safe for podcasting. How solacious is this story?
Speaker 1 (24:25):
There are stories about scatological sabotage of various experiments.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
What you mean involving bodily fluids, Yes, exactly, M. I
think that's safe for podcasting, but maybe I'm not desirable
talk about in a podcast.
Speaker 1 (24:41):
It just sees to show you that there's sort of
high drama, and you know, Nobel prizes were on the line.
In the end, both of these guys won the Nobel Prize.
They shared it for the discovery of this particle. Two
charm quarks bound together. And we still call the particle
j SI. We give it both names because we couldn't
figure out how to settle this dispute.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
And so this is the moment you're saying that the
charm cork was discovered. Because this particle is made out
of two charm corks. What made them think it was
made out of two charm quarks?
Speaker 1 (25:09):
It has all the properties that they predicted if the
charm cork exists, they predicted that it would form this particle,
which has about twice the mass of an individual charm cork,
and it would decay in certain ways and the angles
of those decays, so it basically looked exactly like what
they expected, and there's no other way to explain this particle.
And they can't explain this particle with just upquarks, down
(25:30):
quarks and strange quarks. So that told them, ah, there
must be this new quark out there, and that made
people feel like, Okay, quarks are real because we've predicted
a quark and then seen it. It's not just descriptive.
It's not like we're just using it to tell a
story about what we've already seen. It's helping us understand
future experiments.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
All right. So that's how we discovered the charm cork.
Now I guess the question is is there one inside
the proton?
Speaker 1 (25:54):
So the simple story is no. I mean, this initial
description of quarks as the building blocks of all these
weird particles tell us that the proton is made of
two upquarks and one down cork, and that works because
the math is really weird for these particles. Like an
upcork has charged two thirds, like an electron is charged
minus one An upcork has charged two thirds, it's like
(26:17):
fractionally charged, and the down cork has charged minus one third.
So you add up two upquarks, you did four thirds
of a charge. You add a down cork and it
brings it back down to plus one. So the proton
is explained in terms of two upcorks and a down cork,
and that's a nice simple story, but like everything else
in physics, there's always more to it.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
Now is that the only difference between an upcork and
a down cork is there electrical charge.
Speaker 1 (26:43):
They're also difference in mass. The upcork is lower mass
than the down cork, and they have differences in their
other charges. Remember, the electrical charge is how we talk
about the electromagnetic interaction. Things that have electrical charge interact electromagnetically.
Things that don't don't interact electromagnetically, like a new trino
no electric charge. No electromagnetic interaction ignores electric fields. But
(27:05):
particles have other kinds of charges, Like if you feel
the weak force, you have weak charges, and the weak
force is very complicated. It has two different kinds of charge.
So the upcork and the down cork are different also
in their weak charges how they interact with the weak field.
Speaker 2 (27:22):
And so then the charm cork is just like an
upcorek just heavier or why do you call it a
cousin of the upcork.
Speaker 1 (27:28):
Yeah, because it has all the same charges as the upcork.
It's charged two thirds electromagnetically, it has the same spin
as the upcork. It has the same weak charges as
the upquirk. So if you make like a periodic table
of the fundamental particles, it just makes sense to put
the charm there next to the upcork, the way the
strange is next to the down cork. Because the down
and the strange they have all the same electrical charges
(27:51):
and the weak charges, and so these particles are very
similar to each other except their difference in.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
Mass, meaning that it just has more mass an quark
but just heavier.
Speaker 1 (28:01):
Yeah, it's an upcork, but just heavier. And that's explained,
of course, because of its interactions with the Higgs boson.
The charm interacts more with the Higgs field, and so
it has more mass than the upcork, and not by
a little bit. It has like six hundred times the
mass of the upcork. It's actually more massive than the proton.
Speaker 2 (28:20):
Okay, so then you're saying that the question of whether
there are charm quarks inside the proton. The answer is no,
maybe question mark, So why the no.
Speaker 1 (28:29):
So the simplest story is just like you've got three quarks,
You're done. But think about how those quarks are actually
stuck together. How do quarks come together to make a proton.
They don't like physically click together like pieces of a puzzle.
They're bound together. There's a force that holds them together
the same way they like a proton and an electron
together make a hydrogen atom because of the electromagnetic force.
(28:51):
The quarks are bound together with the strong force, which
means that there's a bunch of gluons there also inside
the proton. So the proton is like two up quarks
in a day and a zillion gluons in between them.
So already we know there is a little bit more
to the proton than just the quarks.
Speaker 2 (29:07):
M I guess maybe I'm getting a little confused because
a proton, you said, is two up quarks and a
down courek, and a neutron, for example, is two down
quarks and one upquark. Yes, so it's sort of like
the same, but you just switch one.
Speaker 1 (29:22):
Of the quarks exactly. And that's why beta de cave
requires just switching one down or up or back and forth.
Speaker 2 (29:29):
M Okay. So now we're asking if the proton has
a different kind of quark in it. But if we
change the quarks in a proton, it wouldn't be a
proton anymore, would it.
Speaker 1 (29:38):
A proton is a proton is a proton. That's just
the thing we find in nature. The question is what's
in it. It might be that the proton's innerds are
different from what we've been describing. For a while, our
story might have been a little bit wrong. So if
there are charm quarks also inside a proton, then that's
what a proton is. We're not talking about replacing one
(29:59):
of the upwork with a charm We're asking if there
are more quarks in there, if it's not just up,
up and down, if there's extra other little bits in there.
Speaker 2 (30:07):
Oh, I see, Like a proton is still proton with
two up quarks and a down quark. But like, maybe
is there a charm cork jammed in there somehow? Yeah,
we haven't seen before.
Speaker 1 (30:17):
Mm hmmm, exactly are there like little bits quantum mechanically
of charm cork hanging out in there?
Speaker 2 (30:23):
Okay? And this is the burning question in particle physics, Now,
why do you even have this question? Why? Why do
you think there might be charm quarks inside the proton?
Speaker 1 (30:31):
Well, we're always just curious, like what is stuff made
out of? We want to know definitively, like what is
a proton? Because the proton's the basic building block of
everything out there in the universe. When the universe cooled
and stuff slowed down, this is what it decided to make,
mostly protons. So, like you want to know the answer
to the question, how does our universe work? What's it
made out of? You got to understand the proton, and
(30:53):
so we're always happy with the first answer, But then
we want to dig deeper and say is that the
total story? Is there more going on to the proton?
And then there are hints, there are hints that maybe
there is something else. And one of the hints is
that we know that the glue between those particles has
the capacity to make more quarks. Like those gluons we
talked about that stick the upcorks and down corks together.
(31:14):
They don't just hang out and stay gluons. Sometimes they
turn it to quarks and then back. So you could
have a gluon in the proton that's flying around. All
of a sudden it turns into a bottom cork and
an anti bottom cork, and then back into a gluon.
So if you shoot a probe at a proton, sometimes
you hit the main quarks, the upcorks and the down quarks.
Sometimes you hit a gluon. Sometimes you hit a bottom cork.
(31:37):
Sometimes you hit a charm cork, sometimes you hit a
top cork. It's a big frothing mess.
Speaker 2 (31:41):
It sounds like it did sort of like quantum mechanical magic,
where there's like an infinite number of particles popping into
existence probabilistically. But we still say that the proton is
made out of three quarks, right, then those are more
real than the other imaginary quarks.
Speaker 1 (31:56):
Yeah, those are the intrinsic quarks. We say the two
upcork and the down cork are like the building block
of the proton because they're there all the time, right,
they're just always part of the proton. They sort of
define what the proton is. And we know that the
gluons that they're slashing around and that, as you say,
quantum mechanically, sometimes if you poke into them they can
be turning into something else and you caught them in
(32:17):
the act, and maybe you can interact with that particle.
But we think about those as like extrinsic particles. We
don't think of those as necessarily part of the proton itself,
because the energy to create those and to make that
interaction happen comes from the collision, Like you want to
smash two protons together to see what's inside and to
interact with those gluons. Then the energy to make like
(32:39):
the bottom cork or whatever else other weird quarks you're
talking about, comes from the energy you've put in. And
so we're interested in more deeply the question like what's
the proton itself made out of? And so this is
the question people have been asking, like, when a proton
is just sitting there by itself, does it also still
have some charm cork in it?
Speaker 4 (32:58):
So?
Speaker 2 (32:58):
Wait, are you asking whether the proton has in addition
to the up, up and down as intrinsic quarks, does
it also have an intrinsic charm cork to it?
Speaker 1 (33:08):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (33:09):
Are you asking whether it has a lot of extrinsic
charm forks in it?
Speaker 1 (33:13):
We already know it has a lot of extrinsic charm corks,
like it has extrinsic everything, because the gluons have so
much energy and if you interact with them, they can
basically make anything. We're asking whether it has intrinsic charm cork,
Like when a proton is just sitting there, does it
also actually have some charm cork in it? And that's
conception a little hard to get your mind around, because like,
(33:33):
what does that mean. We're talking about these three particles
make up the quark, right, Remember that everything we're talking
about is quantum mechanical, and so really we're talking about
making the picture of the proton a little bit more complicated,
not just like there are three particles, but like there
are more options here. Sometimes it has two upquarks in
a down Sometimes one of those is a charm cork.
(33:56):
Sometimes one of those is an upcark. Sometimes one of
those is a down cork. A little bit more of
a complicated mixture of these particles. If there is intrinsic
charm in the proton.
Speaker 2 (34:07):
Hmm okay, So you're sort of saying, like, if we
have the picture that it's made out of two upquarks
and when it down quark, but maybe the picture is
more like it's changing all the time, like maybe the
proton is transforming inside of itself into different combinations of quarks.
Speaker 1 (34:22):
Yes, exactly, And so people have been trying to answer
this question for a long time. They've been doing it
the only way that we know how, which is to
try to break open the proton, throw other protons at it,
or throw electrons add it, smash something into it. It's
tricky though, because you want to distinguish between the scenario
where like the proton has intrinsic charm quarks in it,
(34:42):
you know, like the internals of it is like changing
back and forth from upquarks to charm quarks, or you're
creating charmqirks when you collide. You're manufacturing these extrinsic charm
quirks in the process of probing it. It's been a
very difficult set of experiments to do to distinguish between
the charm quarks we see in the proto are they
intrinsic or are they extrinsic? Not an easy experiment.
Speaker 2 (35:04):
Mmmm, all right, Well, let's dig into the details of
this experiment and what it tells us about what's really
inside a proton or what a proton really is actually
made out of So let's dig into that. But first
let's take another quick break. All right, we're asking what's
(35:32):
really inside the proton? Is it just two up quarks
and a down quark as we've been told, or as
you and I have been telling people for years now. Daniel,
I feel like maybe you're now calling his liars because
it turns out that maybe the question of whether there's
more to the proton than just these quarks, like maybe
(35:53):
it's insides are changing all the time, from two up
quarks and downcork to something else which involves another kind
of cork, the trump part.
Speaker 1 (36:01):
I think everything we've been telling people for years has
an implicit comma maybe dot dot dot at the end
of it.
Speaker 2 (36:07):
I feel like, if you wanted to make that explicit,
maybe we should make it more explicit than you. We
wis should rename the podcast Daniel and Jore Explain the
Universe dot dot dot.
Speaker 1 (36:18):
Maybe you know, it's just part of our scientific storytelling
or always trying to come up with a way to
describe the universe and then figuring out, oh, that doesn't
actually capture all the details. Let's add some bells and
whistles or let's simplify it. Well, let's throw the whole
thing out and explain it in another way. It's just
part of the journey.
Speaker 2 (36:38):
I mean, I feel like maybe all this time you
could have just added, like we think that this is
what it's made out of, not like I feel like
for years have been saying, oh, yes, the proton is
made out of two upcourse into the un cord, like
that's a fact, but maybe it's not.
Speaker 1 (36:52):
Well, you know, when you're introducing people to really weird
complex topics, you have to do it bit by bid.
And if you start with all the qualifiers, all the
reasons why don't understand it, they're never going to get
to the things we think we maybe do understand.
Speaker 2 (37:05):
I think people can handle scientists think or we think
it's made out of this.
Speaker 1 (37:11):
I guess I feel like that's implied with everything that
comes out of my mouth. Anyway, for now on, listeners,
insert a scientist think in front of everything. You hear
me say, that's right.
Speaker 2 (37:21):
Maybe we should have like one of those quick read
disclaimers at the end of each episode, like Daniel Horry explained,
the universe has not been verified by the FDA or
a valid international physics organization.
Speaker 1 (37:34):
Even valid international physics organizations. They just think stuff. Man,
they can be wrong.
Speaker 2 (37:39):
Well, some things are more verified by experiments than others.
Speaker 1 (37:42):
Right, yes, yes, that's true, and that's what we're trying
to capture here in the podcast, the current mainstream thinking
for how the universe works.
Speaker 2 (37:50):
All right, well, I guess we'll tell Coreyer engineer to
just add that disclaimer at the end of every episode
from now and retroactively. Maybe also, can you do that?
You know, maybe we've been deceiving people for five years, Daniel.
Speaker 1 (38:05):
Well, you know, they got to stick around for the twist.
Speaker 2 (38:07):
The twist where we revealed that we liked.
Speaker 1 (38:09):
These are approximations.
Speaker 2 (38:13):
They're not lying, I see, the betrayal.
Speaker 1 (38:17):
Good faith explanations.
Speaker 2 (38:19):
All right, So the idea is that the proton is
mostly mind to up quarks and a down cork. But
maybe you think there's a possibility that that changes sometimes. Yeah,
And so you're saying, first you said, the simple answer
is that no, there's no charm cork in the proton.
Why was that No?
Speaker 1 (38:36):
Again, that's just the sort of simplest answer, and it's
also short of common sense. The charm cork has more
mass than the proton. So it's sort of like saying
that the proton is less than the sum of its
parts if it has like a little bit of charm
cork in.
Speaker 2 (38:48):
It, meaning like it's mostly two ups and quarks in
that down cork. Right. Yeah, that's why the basic answer
is no. But then you're saying, maybe there's more going on.
Maybe it does change into some charminess sometimes. Is that
what's going on?
Speaker 1 (39:02):
Yeah, exactly, because in quantum mechanics, anything that can happen
will happen, and we don't see a reason why you
can't sometimes have charm quarks hanging out inside the proton.
But these calculations are really hard to do. You know.
Quantum chromodynamics, the theory that explains how the strong interactions
work and how quarks come together to make particles, is
(39:22):
a bear to work with. We can't even do things
like calculate from first principles what the mass of the
proton should be or the mass of these other particles.
It's like very very difficult to do anything with. So
it's dominated by experiments. We have to go out and
actually measure this stuff and see what's in the universe
and then try to figure out how to explain it
with our calculations, because we're really limited in the calculations
(39:45):
we can do here. And so people have been doing
experiments to see like what's inside the proton for a
few decades now, and there were some hints, oh, look,
this experiment says there actually is some charm inside the proton,
some intrinsic charm, not charm that's created when we collide
stuff together other out of that energy, but charm that
was already there. And then another experiment that came along
said Nope, we don't see any charm. And these things
(40:07):
were limited because we didn't have enough data, we didn't
have enough energy, we didn't have enough power. But recently,
because the large Hadron Collider, we have more data, we
have more energy, we can get more definitive measurements for
what's inside the proton.
Speaker 2 (40:19):
M I feel like you're talking about charm, like it's
a property, like riz, you know, or like actual charm.
Is it like a property? I thought we were talking
about the charm quark.
Speaker 1 (40:30):
Saying whether it has charm is just shorthand for saying
whether there's a probability to find charm quarks in the proton.
But we are changing a little bit what we mean
by it's made out of right, we think of the
atom is made out of protons, neutrons, and electrons. Like
you have those things as ingredients, you put them together,
and now you call it an atom. Here is a
little bit different. It's a little fuzzyer. It's a little
(40:52):
bit more quantum mechanical. We're saying, like the wave function
of the proton has components of the upcork and the
down cork, and maybe this is a component there for
the charm cork, not like the charm cork is always there,
but there's always a probability for it. So it changes
a little bit what we mean by like this proton
is made of something.
Speaker 2 (41:11):
But I guess then you get into the question of
like where do you draw the line quantum mechanically, it
is technically possible for my body to suddenly turn into
the body of Brad Pitt, right, Like that's a quantum
mechanical probability. It's very small, but it is technically a
possibility right in this universe.
Speaker 1 (41:29):
Yeah, I mean, I think you're both equally chamming, so
you're already there.
Speaker 2 (41:34):
Yeah, Brad Pitt is very chamming, but just because I
can turn into Brad Pitt at any moment doesn't mean
that I am Brad Pitt mm hm.
Speaker 1 (41:42):
But you can ask the question if I call Jorge
a thousand times, what fraction the time does Brad answer?
Speaker 3 (41:48):
Right?
Speaker 2 (41:48):
M m. And well, even if it's like one in
a trillion or what point what number of phone calls
should I change my name to Brad Pitt?
Speaker 1 (41:56):
Yeah? Well, if you've always called Jorge and Brad has
never answered the you can't say that there's a Brad
contribution to Jorge. But as soon as it happens, then boom,
you've measured the Brad fraction of hoorhe sham.
Speaker 2 (42:10):
And then at what point do you say that I
am made out of Brad Pit.
Speaker 1 (42:13):
When you can measure some Brad in hoorray the time
the Brad answers, that's what will declare you are partially
Brad Pit?
Speaker 2 (42:21):
Like is there a percentage that you would do that?
Just like in the proton, is there a percentage of
charm corking? Is that you would then say yes, the
proton does have a charm cork in it, because technically
it does right now, right there's a very small probability
as you said that things in it can turn into
a charm fork.
Speaker 1 (42:37):
I don't think there's any minimum quantities. As long as
you can measure it. As long as it's large enough
for us to detect it, then we'll say we found
charm in the proton and we know that it's there.
Otherwise it's just sort of theoretical. It's like saying, you know,
is there a teapot a zillion light years away? I mean,
maybe there is, but we'll never detect it, so it's
just theoretical. But as long as we measure some charm
(42:58):
cork in the proton, then we can it's there. Otherwise
it's just like a possibility. And again we can't really
even do the calculations or we can predict theoretically and
to say how much charm there should be in the proton,
So it really has to be led by measurements.
Speaker 3 (43:11):
MM.
Speaker 2 (43:12):
But I guess maybe the question is like, are you
saying that it's possible that the proton has the charm
work in it, or is there maybe something the theory
that says it's impossible, or is that what you're trying
to get at, Like we need to prove it to
make sure that it is possible.
Speaker 1 (43:27):
Yeah, the theory says that it's possible, but the theory
is very fuzzy and very hard to work with. So
the best thing to do is to go out there
and measure the charm fraction of the proton, and that
might help us come back and improve our theories and
get a better grip on what we think is going on.
Speaker 2 (43:42):
I see, so you think that maybe it is possible
for the insights of a proton to turn into a
charm cork, but you're not sure yet because you haven't
seen it or confirmed it exactly in experiments. Some people have,
some people haven't.
Speaker 1 (43:54):
That was the scenario until a couple of years ago,
and then using data at the Large Hadron Collider, we
were able to confirmed that there really is charm cork
inside the proton. So this is that paper that came
out in twenty twenty two that had very powerful statistical
evidence for charm quarks inside protons, which means we're pretty
sure we can say the proton is charming. But you know,
(44:16):
dot dot maybe question mark.
Speaker 2 (44:18):
Well, I feel like the language you're using is maybe confusing,
Like you're not saying it has charm inside of it,
You're saying it sometimes turns into a charm cork. What's
inside of the proton?
Speaker 1 (44:27):
I think the most precise way to say it is
that the wave function for the proton has probabilities for upquarks,
down quarks, and charm quarks. Sometimes when you look inside
the proton, you will find a charm core.
Speaker 2 (44:38):
Hmmm, oh all right, So then it has been experimentally verified.
Speaker 1 (44:42):
You think maybe the latest evidence from about a year
ago is pretty persuasive. It's more than three statistical sigmas
of significance.
Speaker 2 (44:51):
Now, what's the difference there, Like, what's the thing that
makes you more sure rather than not that it's not
like coming from the energy when you collide these particles,
for example, that it's actually there if you don't look
at it.
Speaker 1 (45:04):
It comes from the patterns of how the particles emerge
from the collisions. Like if it's coming from actually inside
the proton, then you'll see these particles come out in
the path that the protons were taking, because then the
charm quirks are moving with the protons as they come
into the collision. If the charm quirk wasn't there the
whole time, it's just made during the collision, you tend
(45:24):
to see these charm quarks fly out more like at
the center. We're just where the collision happens. So there's
some subtle patterns there that people have been looking for.
But the spray of particles. You get a different prediction
if the charm cork was there all the time than
if the charm cork is only created in the moments
of the collision. But it's a subtle effect, which is
why this experiment was very difficult to do and needed
(45:46):
a lot of data and was only wrapped up a
couple of years ago.
Speaker 2 (45:49):
Okay, So now does that mean that the international physics
community has issued a giant apology for all those textbooks
and posters that say that the proton is made out
of up quarks? In it down because all this time
you've been wrong.
Speaker 1 (46:03):
Well, I think we're working on stickers on our web
store that say dot dot dot maybe to be added
to every textbook ever.
Speaker 2 (46:10):
Well no, but I mean it, like, you know, you
walk down the physics department, do you see a poster
with the fundamental theory of particle physics and it's as
that a proton is made out of two upcoorse and
douncork but now you have to change the story.
Speaker 1 (46:23):
It sounds like, yeah, it's an update to the story.
It's part of science evolving and becoming more charming as
we learn more about how the universe works.
Speaker 2 (46:32):
So are you going to change those posters? Do you
think that? Or maybe the question is, do you think
those posters need to be updated?
Speaker 1 (46:38):
Yeah, it's a tough question to sort of pedagogy, like
how do you teach this stuff? You know, the story
is mostly the same, but there are nuances, and so
it might be worth introducing those at the very start,
or it might be worth explaining those as you dig
deeper into the story.
Speaker 2 (46:53):
I understand what you mean, because I do a lot
of science communication. But there's sort of a fine line
between not saying something that's not true yeah, and saying
something that's more complicated.
Speaker 1 (47:02):
Yeah. No, it's a difficult line or walk I agree?
Speaker 2 (47:05):
So which one do you think it is? Do you
think it needs to be updated at some point? If
I say right now that the proton is made out
into upworks and down quarks, you technically would have to
say that's not true, or we think that's not true.
So if I see it on a poster, does that
need to be corrected.
Speaker 1 (47:22):
I think that basically everything we say in quantum mechanics
and in particle physics is an approximation. So from that perspective,
like nothing is exactly true, there's always qualifications anywhere to.
Speaker 2 (47:33):
Take exactly I don't say anything.
Speaker 1 (47:36):
At all, but it's still worth saying. It's still worth
introducing people to these ideas, even if the story we
tell at first is only approximately true and the end
all of our understanding is probably only approximately true.
Speaker 2 (47:47):
Well, I mean, I feel like some things are stronger
than others. Like you can say an atom is made
out of protons and electrons. There's no cavea to that,
is there.
Speaker 1 (47:54):
Well, there's other stuff in there, right, The photons can
turn into other particles, and so when you interact with
an atom, some times you find W bosons and z
bosons inside there.
Speaker 2 (48:03):
In addition to the electrons and protons. But the elections
and protons are still there.
Speaker 1 (48:07):
Nope, elections and protons are still there all right.
Speaker 2 (48:09):
Well, another interesting insight into how we're still firing things out.
The universe is vast and mysterious, and our current theories
may change tomorrow or today, or maybe they should have changed,
a while ago.
Speaker 1 (48:22):
We're here trying to explain, are constantly evolving understanding to you?
Speaker 2 (48:26):
All right, Well, we hope you enjoyed that. Thanks for
joining us, See you next time.
Speaker 1 (48:35):
For more science and curiosity, come find us on social
media where we answer questions and post videos. We're on Twitter, Discord, Insta,
and now TikTok. Thanks for listening, and remember that Daniel
and Jorge Explain the Universe is a production of iHeartRadio.
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
(48:55):
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. N
Hosts And Creators
Daniel Whiteson
Kelly Weinersmith
Popular Podcasts
United States of Kennedy
United States of Kennedy is a podcast about our cultural fascination with the Kennedy dynasty. Every week, hosts Lyra Smith and George Civeris go into one aspect of the Kennedy story.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.